diesellibrarian
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- #481
If you look closely, I’m actually missing 6 or 8 of them. My plan is to replace these modern acorn nuts with more period correct lug nuts that I’m going to
Builds Rescuing a Basket Case '72 FJ40 (35 Viewers)
- Thread starter diesellibrarian
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diesellibrarian
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- #482
It’s so true, haha! Just the other day I found the “to do” list for my FJ62, which has been my daily driver for over two years. There are still 6 or 7 uncompleted items on that list.
diesellibrarian
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Made a start on getting the seat mounted. Of course I started with the "easy" side, i.e. the one without a huge fuel tank in the way. I figured that locating the left-hand mounting setup would make it easier to measure and fabricate the right-hand bracketry.
Anyway, I started by doing a bunch of measuring to make sure that the seat was centered right/left etc. and then marked the holes for the front left mounting bracket, which I salvaged from a pile of junk at my local scrap yard. I think it's from a later FJ40. I also made a small reinforcement bracket from a piece of 1/8" bar stock. This will go under the floor to provide additional support to the seat bracket. I welded the nuts on for ease of installation, mostly.
Here's the bracket bolted in place:
Here's the mounting bracket on the underside of the floor pan:
I do like that the mount looks quasi-stock. I'm not trying to make something that the safety inspector might flag as homemade, though that might be a little trickier on the passenger side.
Finally, with the front bracket bolted in place I was able to positively locate the rear bracket. This one is installed using rivnuts, since I don't have access to the underside of the panel.
Hopefully in the next few days I can come up with a solution for the passenger side. Mounting the seat should be the last major bit of work on this truck. Really hoping to be able to get out to the mountains to have some fun with it before winter sets in!
Anyway, I started by doing a bunch of measuring to make sure that the seat was centered right/left etc. and then marked the holes for the front left mounting bracket, which I salvaged from a pile of junk at my local scrap yard. I think it's from a later FJ40. I also made a small reinforcement bracket from a piece of 1/8" bar stock. This will go under the floor to provide additional support to the seat bracket. I welded the nuts on for ease of installation, mostly.
Here's the bracket bolted in place:
Here's the mounting bracket on the underside of the floor pan:
I do like that the mount looks quasi-stock. I'm not trying to make something that the safety inspector might flag as homemade, though that might be a little trickier on the passenger side.
Finally, with the front bracket bolted in place I was able to positively locate the rear bracket. This one is installed using rivnuts, since I don't have access to the underside of the panel.
Hopefully in the next few days I can come up with a solution for the passenger side. Mounting the seat should be the last major bit of work on this truck. Really hoping to be able to get out to the mountains to have some fun with it before winter sets in!
Your rig is looking GREAT
diesellibrarian
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- #485
One of the items on my "to do" list is to get the fuel gauge working. I've been doing lots of reading here on Mud, and I learned a lot - namely, that gauges and senders are not at all compatible across certain years. The earlier gauges (69-72ish) will not work with a later sender. Since I'd installed a later tank, I figured that I most likely had a later sender. Luckily my crusty original tank was still lying around so I pulled the sender out of it, thinking I could simply reinstall it in my newer tank.
Crusty old tank with older-style sender:
This is what the older-style sender looks like on the underside:
Anyway, long story short: the older senders will NOT fit in a newer tank without modification. The mounting holes are the same, but the hole on the later tanks has a thin metal lip that interferes with the collar on the underside of the sending unit. You can see the differences in the following photos:
Older tank:
Newer tank:
So, I now have the correct sender ready to install, but it won't fit into the tank. After mulling my options, I chose probably the stupidest route, which was to enlarge the mounting hole on the later tank with a half-round file. This actually worked pretty well! I put a magnet on the back side of the file to catch any filings that might otherwise have fallen into the tank. After a few minutes of work, I was able to fit the older-style sender into the hole. I installed it, hooked up the wires, and...the fuel gauge still didn't work - it went straight to the "full" mark.
So, I pulled the sender out and bench-tested the resistance, and it was nowhere near what is specified in the manual. It reads about 30 ohms across the spectrum, whereas it should range from 2.1 - 7 ohms. So, it looks like I went to a lot of trouble to come full circle to where I probably should have started: I'll likely need to reinstall the later sender and replace the fuel gauge in the cluster with a later-type gauge.
I do have one question, though: notwithstanding the out-of-spec resistance on the sender, I am wondering it anyone can confirm that there should be 12v at the yellow/red wire that runs from the gauge to the sender? I was not able to read any voltage on that wire.
Crusty old tank with older-style sender:
This is what the older-style sender looks like on the underside:
Anyway, long story short: the older senders will NOT fit in a newer tank without modification. The mounting holes are the same, but the hole on the later tanks has a thin metal lip that interferes with the collar on the underside of the sending unit. You can see the differences in the following photos:
Older tank:
Newer tank:
So, I now have the correct sender ready to install, but it won't fit into the tank. After mulling my options, I chose probably the stupidest route, which was to enlarge the mounting hole on the later tank with a half-round file. This actually worked pretty well! I put a magnet on the back side of the file to catch any filings that might otherwise have fallen into the tank. After a few minutes of work, I was able to fit the older-style sender into the hole. I installed it, hooked up the wires, and...the fuel gauge still didn't work - it went straight to the "full" mark.
So, I pulled the sender out and bench-tested the resistance, and it was nowhere near what is specified in the manual. It reads about 30 ohms across the spectrum, whereas it should range from 2.1 - 7 ohms. So, it looks like I went to a lot of trouble to come full circle to where I probably should have started: I'll likely need to reinstall the later sender and replace the fuel gauge in the cluster with a later-type gauge.
I do have one question, though: notwithstanding the out-of-spec resistance on the sender, I am wondering it anyone can confirm that there should be 12v at the yellow/red wire that runs from the gauge to the sender? I was not able to read any voltage on that wire.
diesellibrarian
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- #486
I've been procrastinating on this repair for a while now, partly because I hate doing things twice. When I bought this 40, it had a nasty tear in the right fender. I hammered it back into shape and then welded it up, but unfortunately I got a little aggressive with the grinder and I thinned the metal to the point where it cracked. Lesson learned. Here's the crack in question:
To fix this, I found a small piece of scrap sheet metal to use as a patch. Because of the location of the repair, the patch needed some shaping to get it to fit. I used a ball peen hammer to introduce some stretch to the middle of the patch, and then used my small, crappy English wheel to smooth it out.
I clamped the patch to the fender and marked the outline, then cut it out with a cut-off wheel, using a mill file to get the fit-up nice and tight.
Then I welded it in, ground the welds flush and added some filler. Pretty tricky working with such a dented surface, but I made it work.
After a few coats of primer followed by a couple of thin layers of topcoat, the repair is almost invisible, and the paint blends quite well with the surrounding patina. I used some red Scotchbrite to help blend the old paint with the new.
All in all, not bad for an evening's work, and another item checked off the list.
To fix this, I found a small piece of scrap sheet metal to use as a patch. Because of the location of the repair, the patch needed some shaping to get it to fit. I used a ball peen hammer to introduce some stretch to the middle of the patch, and then used my small, crappy English wheel to smooth it out.
I clamped the patch to the fender and marked the outline, then cut it out with a cut-off wheel, using a mill file to get the fit-up nice and tight.
Then I welded it in, ground the welds flush and added some filler. Pretty tricky working with such a dented surface, but I made it work.
After a few coats of primer followed by a couple of thin layers of topcoat, the repair is almost invisible, and the paint blends quite well with the surrounding patina. I used some red Scotchbrite to help blend the old paint with the new.
All in all, not bad for an evening's work, and another item checked off the list.
72 is somewhere round the change date - does your cluster have the quick release speedo cable and plug in wiring or the earlier threaded speedo and individually wired gauges? If its the later type the fuel gauge will also have 3 nuts securing it - these are the 5 volt gauges and use the later senders and weird things happen trying to read volts across that red/yellow wire.
diesellibrarian
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- #488
It’s the early thread-on speedo cable cluster.
I just put power across an early gauge - should be 12volts right to the sender. If you short the sender wire to earth the gauge will show full - does take a while for the needle to move, I wouldn't let it go past full.
